The ship, then. CGI – and whilst we can’t tell very much from such a short shot, it looks like a combination of the original ship and the Remastered (if you’re being charitable), or the Remastered ship cut in half (if you aren’t). Either way, it’s a huge improvement on the Remastered/VIII ship, whilst not really looking that comparable to the original model shots. Still, budget issues and all that – and besides, we need to see rather more than a brief glimpse of the ship before being able to judge any of the special effects work properly.

Is the Back to Earth graphic under the Dwarf logo something that appears in the programme, I wonder, or something created especially for the trail?

Dave really are promoting the shit out of this, aren’t they? First short teasers, then slightly longer ones, with God knows what to follow… this is more like a promotional campaign for a film than anything.

Finally, whether you like Dave’s presentation or not, you have to admit that the H on the stag is a nice touch.

If you haven’t been holding on tight so far, I suggest you do so – the next few weeks are going to be absolutely mental…

This has made me so excited! Yes, I think Stabim is right, it looks like the classic ship in CGI. I’d like to have gone back to using models, but with the small budget it’s understandable that they’re using CGI.

>i wonder whats up with dougs intension to change the ship back to the original, giving how much effort was made for the pencil in series 8 and the movie

I guess the pencil would’ve looked best in letterbox widescreen (for the movie). The Dave specials will probably be screened in standard widescreen, which might be one of the reasons why they’ve gone back to something more akin to the classic shape.

Also, if the pencil model was built in components as Doug suggested the actual ship might have been, perhaps design-wise, all they needed to do was just remove two or three of the existing sections, and then re-combine the remaining ones to create the new model.

Everything is OK after the end of series VIII. The nanobots are instructed to “put everything back the way it was”. So they do, accidentally erasing Rimmer and Kochanski, and returning the ship to its original shape, after JMC made all its cutbacks.

I have to say, I was almost hoping for some retransferred-and-cropped model shots from Series 1 to be used. Bear in mind they were shot on 35mm – so an HD transfer would have been possible. It would have been cheap, and could have looked wonderful. And considering a lot of the show seems to be taking place on Earth, I thought they might have gone for it, if all they needed were a few stock shots – especially as they seem to be going for a “Best of Dwarf” vibe.

But it seems like the whole of the first episode takes place on Dwarf – and for all we know, they need specific shots for the storytelling. Not sure how well the cropping would have worked either – with the shape of the ship how it is, it could have looked a bit cramped.

It does rather raise the question – did Chris Veale work on these shots? His name hasn’t been mentioned in connection with the new episodes. If he didn’t, did Mike Seymour and the guys just take his computer model? Or was the CGI model created from scratch from the original physical model, and then shortened?

I think it’s because the classic connical exhaust helped create a sense of balance to the scoop-heavy front. With this design, it just kind of stops at the rear section as opposed to being rounded off.

There’s a very interesting ‘when did you last see the port side of Red Dwarf?’ debate to be had, actually…

> if the pencil model was built in components as Doug suggested

That was a ‘within the fiction’ idea, not how the remastered ship – a real model first, a CGI one later – was made.

> it?s the first time I can recall seeing a flare come out of the rear section whilst travelling at sub-light speeds.

Though you could always see the light-bulb clearly in shots from behind, which was nice. :-)

> With this design, it just kind of stops at the rear section as opposed to being rounded off.

You can’t fully deduce what’s at the back of the ship on that image, but you can kinda see one thing: It’s something bloody similar to the original exhaust, in as much as it’s not the full height of the ship and sticks out at the back, from the middle. So: not the remastered back-end.

Is this the first PROPER confirmation that the Dwarf itself is indeed part of BtE? OK, we kind of got that anyway, but did it actually say that on Dave’s site or TOS? I can’t remember the synopses since the good people at Dave took them down.

Whatever, the classic ship is sort of back! I’m glad it’s not exactly the same, but not as glad as I am that the pencil is gone. I still think one of the good things about the shorter ship is that it looks funnier, and I don’t reckon a ship called ‘Dwarf’ should look long and pencil-like. Yes, these are minor things, but they, you know, play on your mind…

Regarding the music, are we gonna get any info on that anytime soon? Please let the brass theme stay, even if it’s library music.

Is this the first PROPER confirmation that the Dwarf itself is indeed part of BtE? OK, we kind of got that anyway, but did it actually say that on Dave?s site or TOS? I can?t remember the synopses since the good people at Dave took them down.

Well, there’s the quarters’ pictures on the main site, and the synopsis mentioned at least one pretty major thing happening on the ship. But in terms of actually seeing the ship, yes it’s the fist proper confirmation.

I wasn’t keen on the ‘pencil’ design, (although the model pan-over shots on the Bodysnatcher DVD looked awesome) but I understood Doug Naylor’s reasoning behind it. It was just too looooooooong.

Oh, hang on, I did get it! (I love my PVR! – Buffer recording is great, buy a Topfield everyone). It was on Dave Ja Vu, which is why I was pissed off because I thought I’d missed it for the day. Uploading now.

Wow thank goodness they have reverted back to a more old school design. The only thing I don’t like about the teaser is the nebulae in the background in Space. I prefer the crisp black look in space. It feels more desolate and nebulae are probably quite far and few between in the far reaches. It was a problem in the remastered too, just to make Space more intriguing for those slobs out there in TV land for a more commercial sell. Well asides from that minor quibble the teaser has the music, has the retro look, and from where I’m standing I’m a pretty rich man.

One more thing to add to the ‘jayj is rather awesome’ list. Annoyingly, my new house seems to have the shittest Freeview reception in the world, so my Toppy might be useless :(

Anyway, I’m obviously very excited about this. Due to the lack of internets at home, Ian, Jo and myself were totally blindsided by this on Saturday night and it felt GOOD. My first impression was that I didn’t like the look of the ship, but on closer inspection I think that’s down to the lack of light making it look a little fuzzy. Can’t wait for some proper renders.

Thinking about it, I probably would’ve preferred to see the remastered MODEL used in these episodes, rather than a CG anything, even if it is back to basically the original design. The shape aside, that model is one of the greatest things in the world and it would’ve looked spanking in HD. Still, when I consider budget I really can’t complain in the slightest, because this looks great.

Users Online

Meta

Recommendations

“While there's nothing wrong with swearing when the time calls for it, the swearing here is unnecessary and comes across as uneducated, vulgar and puerile Was it necessary to add a "fucking" there? This really puts me off reading the posts on this site.” - Lawless One, G&T Comments